NEW ROMNEY AD – DAY ONE, PART TWO: Boston sticks with the same theme for its second paid ad of the general election. “Day one, President Romney announces deficit reductions, ending the Obama era of big government, helping secure our kids’ futures,” a male narrator says calmly-yet-forcefully over dramatic music in a 30-second spot. “President Romney stands up to China on trade and demands they play by the rules. President Romney begins repealing job-killing regulations that are costing the economy billions. That’s what a Romney presidency will be like.” En Español: http://bit.ly/LbL1fB. In English: http://bit.ly/LH6nnt.

Story Continued Below

WISCONSIN RECALL –

DGA INVESTING ANOTHER $1 MILLION: The Democratic Governors Association is sending an additional $1 million to Greater Wisconsin today to support ads already airing statewide, as well as get-out-the vote efforts in the 12 days remaining until the June 5th recall. This brings DGA’s total investment to over $3 million in Wisconsin.

REPUBLICAN GOVS HELP OUT WALKER: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will campaign with Scott Walker in Wisconsin today. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will do the same on June 1. Virginia Gov. McDonnell, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, will join Walker for an event Tuesday. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, RGA Vice Chairman, was there earlier this month.

“OBAMA NOT TAKING VOCAL ROLE”: That’s the headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The state’s top political reporter, Craig Gilbert, writes: “Obama's forces are pitching in with voter turnout and fundraising appeals. But the president has avoided taking a vocal role in the conflict, and there is little expectation of an Obama visit to Wisconsin in the homestretch of the campaign.” http://bit.ly/LskgmA

REASON-RUPE (conducted by ORC International, which polls with CNN too): Walker, 50; Barrett, 42. The same poll shows Obama leading Romney 45-41 among those likely to vote in the recall. Analysis from the libertarian magazine: http://bit.ly/MJhcEW. Toplines: http://bit.ly/JsYZqH.

HIGH DEMAND FOR ABSENTEE BALLOTS: More than 90,000 had been issued as of Wednesday, state election officials tell the La Crosse Tribune. http://bit.ly/JeTZo6

2016 WATCH—THE LEFT HAS ELEVATED THEIR WORST NIGHTMARE: Scott Walker will attain an exalted status as conservative folk hero by fending off this recall, which looks increasingly likely. If he becomes President of the United States in January 2017 – something Score believes is within the realm of possibility – it will be the result of what would then probably be the biggest blunder in the history of organized labor. Robin Bravender notes that he’s raised more than $25 million since January 2011. “His profile is as high as I’ve ever seen a governor’s profile in the country,” said Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips. “I’ll be in Florida tomorrow, and I’ll mention Gov. Walker in every event, and the loudest applause of the day will be for him.” http://politi.co/KFmo8E

THE WAY TO WIN ™ — HOW HATCH BAGGED PALIN ENDORSEMENT: National Review’s Bob Costa gets the back-story on Sarah Palin’s surprise Fox News endorsement of Orrin Hatch Tuesday night by interviewing both key players. “In the Twitter and Facebook era, they became political allies the old-fashioned way: through handwritten letters and personal phone calls…He encourages her and cheers her. They share family stories, they discuss history, and they talk about legislation…‘She and her husband are the handsomest couple that I’ve ever met,’ Hatch says, smiling, as we chat in his spacious Senate office. ‘They’re both top-flight people and I got angry with the mainstream media constantly running her down.’ … Hatch openly acknowledges that he has long and doggedly sought Palin’s support. For him, strong personal relationships are an elemental part of politics…they have enabled him to become a force on Capitol Hill.” http://bit.ly/Kj0skH

As Ted Cruz puts his own money in, Romney appears on the cover of Time with his mom and the Obama campaign brings back the “corporations are people” gaffe, here’s POLITICO’s Morning Score: your daily guide to the permanent campaign.

GALLUP/USA Today national on JOE BIDEN: 42% favorable; 45% unfavorable. This is the first time he’s ever been underwater as vice president: http://bit.ly/MIq6m5.

TODAY –

WHAT OBAMA IS UP TO: 8:30 a.m. PT fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. Then flies to Des Moines for a visit to TPI Composites in Newton, Iowa, where he will call for clean energy tax credits legislation in a 4:15 CT speech and hold a grassroots event at 7 CT in Des Moines. Gets back to White House at 11:45 ET tonight.

WHAT ROMNEY IS UP TO: At Universal Bluford Charter School for roundtable and school tour. Event starts at 8:45 a.m. Then on to Boston for a 6 p.m. fundraiser.

WHAT BIDEN IS UP TO: Flies to Charlotte for campaign events at 12:45 and 2:30. Returns to D.C. for a 6:30 fundraiser in McLean to help Tim Kaine’s Senate campaign.

BRACKETING ROMNEY – MOVEON RENTS PLANE; DEMS HOLD PRESSER: MoveOn.org has rented a plane to fly a banner over Romney’s Boston fundraiser tonight. It’s part of a campaign, called “99airlines,” to “own the skies” and link the Republican to the 1 percent. The liberal group flew a banner over Liberty University last week during Romney’s commencement that said “GOP = Higher Student Debt.” Meanwhile, Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh and U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano will hold a 3:30 p.m. press conference at party headquarters to highlight “Romney’s broken promises from his failed record as Governor of Massachusetts.”

NEW SUPER PAC AD ATTACKS ROMNEY IN ARIZONA: The group, PAC+, will begin airing its first TV spot in Arizona, Mark Barabak scoops in the LA Times. The 30-second spot lumps Romney with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Gov. Jan Brewer. The tagline: “While we study and work…Romney builds walls.” It also features a clip of Romney saying he doesn’t care about the very poor: http://lat.ms/Jtfm6w.

TO DODGE LATINO DOOM, ROMNEY SHOULD AIM FOR 35-40%: “There is no precise ‘magic Latino number” that Romney must hit to guarantee victory in key states,” Paul West explains in the Los Angeles Times, “but … the closer he gets to 40, the better his chances.” http://lat.ms/JeLsl3

ROMNEY IGNORING IMMIGRATION: “Despite appearing before a Latino group [yesterday], Romney didn’t once speak about immigration. None of the three pre-selected questions he was asked after his speech addressed that topic.” http://bit.ly/MJnqV6

ROMNEY AND OBAMA TO ADDRESS NALEO NEXT MONTH: Romney will deliver a speech to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials conference in Orland on June 21. Obama will speak to the group the next day, his first appearance at the NALEO convention since he was running in 2008. Fox News: http://bit.ly/KVIqUm.

ROMNEY’S BAIN –

NEW OBAMA VIDEO – BROACHING “CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE”: Chicago just posted a 30-second web video, which is basically just the clip of Mitt Romney losing his cool at the Iowa State Fair last August. “Corporations are people, my friend,” he snapped at a heckler. “Of course they are. Everything corporations earn eventually goes to people.” It’s a teaser for the president’s own grassroots event in Iowa later today. The tagline: “Remember this?” http://bit.ly/KjjhEp

NYT A1 – OBAMA RISKS LONG-TERM DAMAGE TO DEMOCRATIC FUNDRAISING: In a front-page story in today’s New York Times, Nicholas Confessore says some Democrats think the president is walking a PERILOUS line. “At stake are not only a political and policy relationship Democrats have nurtured over decades with the financial services industry, but the millions of dollars in campaign cash that have come with it…It is one of the most delicate topics within the party these days. Two Democrats with close ties to Wall Street, Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, declined to comment on Wednesday. Other lobbyists, donors and industry executives declined to speak for the record, saying they did not want to highlight internal divisions and debates.” http://nyti.ms/JFrcsr

WHAT BOSTON IS READING: Lanny Davis, the D.C. fixer who defended Bill Clinton during impeachment, writes an op-ed in The Hill newspaper to defend Cory Booker and say his point was correct: http://bit.ly/Lag5fQ.

ROMNEY TALKERS –

RICK PERRY HELPING RAISE MONEY: The Texas governor will join Romney on a call this morning with his own top donors from Texas and around the country. The Dallas Morning News Todd Gillman: “The call will last up to a half-hour, and the number of participants could be in the hundreds…Anita Perry appeared at a fund-raiser last week in Austin with Romney's wife Ann.” http://dallasne.ws/JWMRRy

HE MET PRIVATELY WITH MITCH MCCONNELL IN D.C. YESTERDAY. The sit-down was not announced and was first reported by CNN.

HE RARELY TALKS ABOUT HIS MASSACHUSETTS RECORD: “Michael Dukakis wouldn’t stop talking about the ‘Massachusetts Miracle’ during the 1988 campaign. These days, it’s a minor miracle when the word ‘Massachusetts’ passes from Mitt Romney’s lips for more than a fleeting moment,” Glenn Thrush writes in a smart story. “By choosing to emphasize his experience as a can-do businessman who ran the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and Bain Capital, Romney is shielding himself from the charge that he’s a hidden centrist who passed the nation’s most sweeping local health care reform bill, supported abortion rights and closed tax loopholes for the rich…Massachusetts, it seems, doesn’t pass Romney’s risk-vs.-reward test.” http://politi.co/La1YXI

WATCH FOR DEMS TO USE THIS AS A TALKING PIONT: Only 36 percent of voters hold a generally favorable view of Romney in Massachusetts, according to a Suffolk University poll out overnight, with 54 percent seeing him unfavorably in the state he spent four years leading. Obama currently leads 59-34 in the Bay State. http://bit.ly/JXBlFA

TIME COVER STORY ON WHAT HE LEARNED FROM LENORE: “Bluntly put, Mitt learned from each of his parents how to lose an election,” Bart Gellman and Elizabeth Dias write. “He found much to emulate as well, but longtime associates and family members say it became his prime concern to avoid their mistakes. As he constructed a political persona, they say, his father’s career naturally loomed large—but ultimately his choices owed more to Lenore than to George.” Here is a blog post previewing the story, which says it is going to post Thursday morning (it has not yet as this goes out): http://ti.me/JXOTAN. Here is an image of the cover: http://bit.ly/JpzD0b.

HE PROMISES TO GET UNEMPLOYMENT BELOW 6% BY END OF 2016: “I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we’d put in place, we’d get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower,” he told Time’s Mark Halperin during a 36-minute sit-down in Manhattan Wednesday. Videos: http://ti.me/JEoZ0A. Transcript: http://ti.me/JT7H60.

GAYS—

OBAMA TRIES TO CAPITALIZE ON GAY MARRIAGE: The campaign released this five-minute web video yesterday about the president’s “fight for LGBT rights” that rounds up everything he’s done for the constituency since taking office. Watch: http://bit.ly/Je4wjA.

MANY SUSPECT OBAMA WILL COME OUT FOR NATIONAL EQUALITY: “Despite his comments that he thinks the matter should be left to the states, many gay rights advocates strongly believe that it must be dealt with nationally — and that Obama is quietly on their side,” The Washington Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar writes today. “Conservative critics of the president suspect the same, citing this as one way the president might tack left if reelected. And some Obama supporters who are uncomfortable with same-sex marriage fear that in a second term, he would come under enormous pressure to back efforts to impose the legalization of such unions at the federal level.” http://wapo.st/KjcIBV

COLIN POWELL ENDORSES IT: “I have no problems with it,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “I don’t see any reason not to say that [same-sex couples] should be able to get married under the laws of their state or the laws of the country.” http://bit.ly/JWiLxo

CHUCK GRASSLEY SAYS IT COULD COST HIM IOWA: “I think that for the people who oppose gay marriage, it is a more crucial issue to them,” the senator said on a conference call with reporters. http://dmreg.co/JEIXIp

THE PATH TO 270—

ALAN ABRAMOWITZ FORECASTS NARROW OBAMA VICTORY: The Emory University political scientist writes for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball blog about what the social science models say: “Whether we base our prediction on President Obama's 47% approval rating in the Gallup Poll in early May or a more sophisticated forecasting model incorporating economic conditions and the ‘time for change’ factor, it appears likely that we are headed for a very close election in November. Both models make Obama a slight favorite to win a second term.” http://bit.ly/La9qCb

JOE LIEBERMAN IS UNCOMMITTED: The former Democratic VP nominee who backed John McCain in 2008 told CNN that he does not know who he’ll vote for yet. “I'm watching very carefully, and listening carefully,” he said. “I'll not vote based on party, obviously, but based on who I think will be the person who can best secure the future of our country.” http://bit.ly/JJ8d64

COLIN POWELL SURE SOUNDS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BACK OBAMA AGAIN: “I don't know who all of his advisers are, but I've seen some of the names and some of them are quite far to the right. And sometimes they might be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought," the former Secretary of State and retired four-star general said during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe yesterday. Jen Bendery says he gave the example of Romney recently saying that Russia is the ‘number one geopolitical foe’ to the United States. “Come on Mitt, think,” Powell said. “That isn't the case.” He’s officially uncommitted: http://huff.to/JU46ES.

CHICAGO TO UNVEIL NEW ORGANIZING APP TODAY: The Wall Street Journal scoops that Obama's re-election campaign will introduce its online organizing tool for 2012 today. “The program, known as Dashboard, has been in development since last year and builds off technology used by the campaign in 2008. It is meant to replicate a campaign field office, allowing volunteers to do phone banking, organize events and talk to campaign leaders from their laptops or smartphones.”

HAWAII SENATE SNEAK PEEK – LCV ENDORSES HIRONO: The League of Conservation Voters will endorse Rep. Mazie Hirono in her Democratic Senate primary against Ed Case. Hirono has a 96 percent lifetime LCV score on environmental issues, and the group believes she’s shown leadership on clean energy and climate change. A recent Public Policy Polling survey, conducted on behalf of LCV and shared with Score, finds that Hirono leads former Republican Gov. Linda Lingle by nine points (50-41). The group is not sharing how Hirono performs against Case, but she’s led in her internal polls. Here are five pages of PPP cross-tabs on a Hirono-Lingle matchup: http://bit.ly/JJa76G.

OHIO SENATE – MANDEL RETURNS $105,000 IN QUESTIONABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: “Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, has returned $105,000 in campaign donations to 21 employees at a North Canton direct-marketing firm following reports that federal investigators sought records about contributions he and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci received from the company,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. “In a letter sent to Suarez Corporation Industries dated Tuesday, Mandel's campaign treasurer Kathryn Kessler said, ‘We have decided to issue refunds for any contributions that appear to be under investigation by federal authorities. We believe we have no reason to be concerned with the contribution, but out of an abundance of caution and until the investigation is complete, we believe this course of action is most appropriate.’ … Renacci spokesman James Slepian said their campaign will take a wait-and-see approach before returning any donations.” http://bit.ly/Kg8VVy

MASSACHUSETTS SENATE – SUFFOLK POLL SHOWS BROWN 48; WARREN, 47: “Seventy-two percent of likely voters were aware of the recent controversy concerning Elizabeth Warren’s heritage,” per a press release. “Of those, 49 percent said Warren was telling the truth about being part Native American; 28 percent said she was not telling the truth; and 23 percent weren’t sure. Meanwhile, 41 percent said they believed that Elizabeth Warren benefited by listing herself as a minority, while 45 percent said she did not benefit. Sixty-nine percent of likely voters said that Warren’s Native American heritage listing is not a significant story, while 27 percent said that it is.” Who is running a better campaign? Brown, 42; Warren, 23. Poll press release: http://bit.ly/JXBlFA. The New York Times reports anecdotally on A16 that the issue is not swaying voters: http://nyti.ms/KNtwmV.

FLORIDA SENATE –MACK CAMP RETRACTS FORTUNO QUOTES: “The U.S. Senate campaign of Connie Mack IV issued an incorrect version of an endorsement from Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuño that included statements Fortuño may not have made bashing Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson,” per the Tampa Tribune. “The news release quoted Fortuño as calling Nelson, President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ‘lockstep liberals,’ a Mack campaign slogan. Late Wednesday, the campaign acknowledged the news release was incorrect and sent out an updated version that also omitted the statements.” Tom Coburn endorsed George LeMieux yesterday. http://bit.ly/JelwpH

OHIO SENATE – MANDEL GOES NEGATIVE WITH SECOND AD: “What is 37-year politician Sherrod Brown hiding with his negative ads? Brown bailed out Wall Street, gave huge bonuses to executives, sent billions of our tax dollars to foreign countries and cast the deciding vote on the government takeover of health care,” a narrator says. “Time for a change?” Watch: http://bit.ly/LGZWB0.

INDIANA SENATE – MOURDOCK SCRUBS ANTI-LUGAR MATERIAL: The ‘news’ section of Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's website, which lists press releases and news articles about the candidate, now includes only posts going back to May 8, the day of Indiana's primary, Emily Schultheis reports. “Cached versions of the site show posts going back to last year, including Mourdock's announcement speech that criticized Lugar and items like an op-ed titled ‘Lugar's voting record shows he's not conservative.’” http://politi.co/KbPdvz

TEXAS SENATE – CRUZ LOANS $400K TO HIS CAMPAIGN: “GOP Senate firebrand Ted Cruz has loaned his campaign $400,000. But a new 48-hour notice to the Federal Election Commission shows that a pro-David Dewhurst super PAC on Tuesday added $300,000 to its buys of ads slamming Cruz,” the Dallas Morning News reports. “The new report brings to $2 million the amount the Texas Conservatives Fund has spent against Cruz, more than half of it in Cruz's hometown of Houston…For Cruz, dipping into his own pocket for $400,000 was a sign of all-out commitment to his bid to beat Dewhurst. Still, the much richer Dewhurst is approaching a $10 million self-financing effort, commission reports indicate. And his friends are negating Cruz's third-party helpers.” DMN: http://dallasne.ws/JTshDj. Texas Tribune says Dewhurst is attacking former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert to bring him down enough to potentially avoid a runoff with Cruz: http://bit.ly/JFsDap.

NORTH DAKOTA SENATE – HEITKAMP KEEPS HER DISTANCE FROM OBAMA: The AP does a takeout that the DSCC wants you to read. In it, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp stresses her independence from the president – who will badly lose in her state. “I think he’s failed in the one test America had for him, which was to unite the country,” she said. “I think he needed to be more hands-on. ... I don’t think he’s done enough to think broadly and come up with solutions that would engage both sides in a reasonable dialogue.” http://wapo.st/KqmwKS

MONTANA SENATE – REHBERG ACCIDENT PHOTO ON BOATING POSTER: From The Huffington Post, “Rep. Denny Rehberg, the Republican congressman running for U.S. Senate in Montana…was one of several people injured in a 2009 boating wreck when the speedboat he was riding in, which was being driven by then-state Sen. Greg Barkus, slammed into the rocky shore of a lake near Bigfork, Mont. Rehberg suffered a broken ankle and ribs, and an aide was in a coma for more than a week. Barkus was found to have had a .16 blood-alcohol level. He pleaded no contest to a charge of felony criminal endangerment, and was sentenced early last year to a 4-year deferred prison sentence and $29,000 in fines. The startling photo of the wreck, with the boat entirely out of the water, made most local papers. And now, it's the feature photo of a boating safety campaign in Montana.” The poster: http://huff.to/JsUHQ5.

MISSOURI GOVERNOR – NIXON AIDE PRESSURES FRAT TO TAKE DOWN SIGN: “A large campaign banner for a Republican gubernatorial candidate came down Wednesday at a fraternity at the University of Missouri-Columbia after a high-ranking staff member for Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon apparently raised concerns about whether the political sign was appropriate,” the AP reports from Jeff City. “Republican challenger Dave Spence hung a campaign banner last week on a new house being built for Beta Theta Pi, where Spence is an alumnus. A day later, fraternity chapter counselor Jason Swindle said he got a phone call from the fraternity's national office in Ohio saying that Nixon communications director Sam Murphey had contacted the office to suggest that the political banner could jeopardize the tax-exempt status of a fraternity foundation and should come down.” http://bit.ly/MJkp7m

ARIZONA SPECIAL – BARBER REFUSES TO SAY IF HE’LL VOTE FOR OBAMA: The Arizona Daily Star reports on another dramatic debate. “Democrat Ron Barber and Republican Jesse Kelly got to ask each other one question tonight in their only live debate of the campaign to fill Gabrielle Giffords’ former seat in Congress. A full house of 450 people at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, which hosted the debate sponsored by the Arizona Daily Star, then heard the two spar over Social Security/Medicare protection and the health-care law signed by President Obama…When it was his turn to ask his rival a question, Kelly asked Barber to declare who he’ll vote for in November for president, and Barber — although a Democrat with an incumbent president of his party — refused, saying he’s focused on his own campaign.” http://bit.ly/KjtVei

KELLY SPOKESMAN INTERRUPTS INTERVIEW: The Tucson ABC affiliate news director writes a blog post about a flack interrupting one interview with his anchor, calling to “attack” him and then canceling another scheduled sit-down. During a taped interview, his anchor asked a viewer’s question to Republican Jesse Kelley about a controversial endorsement he’d received from an anti-illegal immigration advocacy group. The spokesman, John Ellinwood, called the language of the question incendiary and said it was a two-year-old story. After the back-and-forth, the campaign wound up rescheduling the interview anyway. The blog post: http://bit.ly/JoWfhr. An alt weekly item about it: http://bit.ly/KDSstp.

KENTUCKY HOUSE—21-YEAR-OLD BET $561,000 ON MASSIE: A handful of Republicans (mainly from the establishment but one from Paul world) told me yesterday that a key wrinkle of Tom Massie’s primary victory that I overlooked was the role that outside spending played on behalf of the Rand Paul-backed candidate. Here comes a Bloomberg story on John Ramsey, a college senior who spent $1.3 million of his own money to create Liberty for All Super PAC—which spent $561,000 on TV and radio in the primary. “Ramsey attends Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he’s several courses shy from a double-major in business economics and finance,” Greg Giroux writes. “His interest in economics and finance comes from his grandfather, Justin Robert Howard, a banker who died on Thanksgiving 2010 and left a fortune to his survivors, including Ramsey and his two older siblings.” http://bloom.bg/JeIcpQ

NEW MEXICO HOUSE – GRIEGO HAD 11 ARREST WARRANTS: “Congressional candidate Eric Griego had a tendency to miss court dates and ignore judicial orders after getting tickets for speeding, according to Bernalillo County court records,” the Albuquerque Journal reports. “At least 11 arrest warrants were issued for Griego by Metropolitan Court judges between 2000 and 2007, records show. The warrants were for failing to appear at scheduled court hearings or missing court-ordered driver school programs for traffic citations, such as speeding.” Story: http://bit.ly/KS8641. A new commercial that will go on the air from his opponent, Michelle Lujan Grisham, tells of how she went undercover to expose abuse and neglect at a long-term care facility: http://bit.ly/LGZMtk.

VEEPSTAKES—

DEMS MIGHT BLOCK CHRISTIE’S GAY/BLACK SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: “The New Jersey State Bar Association declared a state Supreme Court nominee of Gov. Chris Christie qualified after a confidential review, sources said, but members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said today they would make their own decision after confirmation hearings next week…The disclosure of the review comes the day after The Star-Ledger learned the nomination of the [Bruce] Harris— a Republican — to be taken up next Thursday, appears to be in jeopardy because of a lack of support among the eight Democrats on the committee. There are five Republican members. A finance attorney with the firm Greenberg Traurig, Harris has been criticized by Democrats as not having enough courtroom experience. The 61-year-old mayor of Chatham Borough, is the third African-American and the first openly gay nominee to the Supreme Court.” http://bit.ly/Ls7PUs

MARCO RUBIO COMPLAINS ABOUT LIFE IN THE SENATE: "Too often times in the United States Senate especially, most of the votes we take are nothing but messaging points," the Florida senator said in a speech at the Latino Coalition's Annual Economic Summit in Washington, per CBS’ Rebecca Kaplan. "Bills are brought to the floor, that people know are not going to pass, for one purpose alone, and that's to give people talking points on the Sunday evening shows…Our people deserve better. It's not like we don't have major issues to confront, but they are not being confronted. The only thing that's being done in the Senate these days is creating material for television commercials in the fall, and it's sad." http://cbsn.ws/Khc9YY

Our favorite line from the speech (not picked up in the stories): "For those who don't speak Spanish, I gave a brief synopsis on how I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance."

ROB PORTMAN PROFILED IN THE POST: Michael Leahy focus on the boring meme, which is pretty tired and well-worn at this point. From the story: “His older brother, Wym, remains annoyed about what Colbert said. ‘Flashy isn’t a word I’d use to describe Rob,’ he said. ‘But when Colbert called him ‘bland,’ that just missed the point. . . . He’s not Obama or Clinton at the podium, but he’s a good orator, I think — he’s made a huge jump. What he’s always been is a thoughtful, serious person — I would think we would want that.’ Portman signaled that he didn’t much care about Colbert’s comment. ‘I mean, it was a surprise,’ he says. ‘But it was fine. To me, it’s not about being exciting.’” http://wapo.st/Kjl7oH

LIGHTER CLICKS –

JOHN MCCAIN is set to get his own Institute for Political Leadership at Arizona State University. It’ll be based in DC but have a physical presence on the Tempe campus. Expected to formally launch in December, the Arizona Republic says it will be “initially funded with the senator's surplus presidential campaign cash.” http://bit.ly/JtePBu

DAN RATHER said last night that the 2012 election is “by far the worst” of the 11 he’s covered in his career: http://politi.co/LbOQ4w.

DAVID LETTERMAN pushed Bill O’Reilly on his show last night about why the president is not getting more credit for what he has accomplished: http://bit.ly/LbP1wt.

BARACK OBAMA bowed to a 5-year-old black boy three years ago this month because he had asked if his hair is just like the president’s. The result is an iconic photo that continues to hang in the White House and David Axelrod’s office. Jackie Calmes has a fun read on the backstory: http://nyti.ms/JyxfWg.

BOB WOODWARD’s new book on Obama’s handling of the economy will come out September 12, timed for post-Labor Day buzz.

MINKA KELLY is being cast as Jackie Kennedy in “The Butler.” Mathew McConaughey will play JFK. http://bit.ly/JE866c

ANDREA SAUL, the Romney spokeswoman and daughter of “carpet pioneers,” is coming home to Dalton, Georgia, to help raise money for the campaign. Adorable write-up in The Dalton Daily Citizen: http://bit.ly/LhbIvO.

BOB WHITE, Mitt’s longtime business partner and alter ego, is profiled in The New Republic: http://bit.ly/KS7NWI.

THE GROUP TRYING TO RAISE CIGARETTE TAXES in California is out with a funny parody of an industry-backed ad opposing the measure: http://bit.ly/JdUVsZ.

A NORTH CAROLINA TEACHER is suspended after she told a student he could be arrested for criticizing President Obama: http://bit.ly/Jt6UV5.

CODA – QUOTE OF THE DAY: “You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this…Read the latest news from the Social Security trustees. The Social Security system will now ‘hit the skids’ in 2033 instead of 2036. If you can’t understand all of this you need a pane of glass in your naval [sic] so you can see out during the day!” – Former Sen. Alan Simpson writes a letter to the California Alliance for Retired Americans after they attacked the work of the Simpson-Bowles Commission http://lat.ms/KNpaw4

About The Author

James Hohmann is a reporter for POLITICO Pro.

He covered the 2012 presidential campaign from start to finish, authoring the daily Morning Score tipsheet for nearly two years as he reported from 23 states over the course of the primaries and general election. Through the fall, he traveled with Mitt Romney.

Hohmann spent 2010 chronicling the Republican Party’s drive to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He arrived from The Washington Post at the end of 2009. Previously he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, the Dallas Morning News and The San Jose Mercury News.

An honors graduate of Stanford University, Hohmann studied American political history. He served as editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily and wrote an award-winning thesis about the 1976 Republican primaries and the political ascendancy of Ronald Reagan.